Friday, June 01, 2007
Law and Disorder: Mumia, Iraq, political prisoners
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Thursday, May 31, 2007
Guantanamo Bay, Center for Constitutional Rights
Thursday and I planned to write about Law and Disorder but that will have to wait until tomorrow because I saw something that I thought needed some more attention right away.
Remember that Day of Action to Restore Law and Justice - June 26, 2007 happens in June and remember that it's been five years and counting that prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have been denied the justice that we are supposed to support and practice in the United States. This is a link from the Center for Constitutional Rights:
Send a letter to your representatives demanding the restoration of habeas corpus
That'll let you write your reps and say, "Stop it! Bring back justice!" And we need to and if you don't think we do . . . C.I. e-mailed me this press release from CCR, "Center For Constitutional Rights Condemns Death of Fourth Guantanamo Prisoner:"
NEW YORK - MAY 31 - The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) today condemned the death of a fourth prisoner held without charge or trial at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The detainee is Saudi but has not yet been identified by the Department of Defense.
"In the last year, the conditions at Guantanamo have become even more bleak: the military has increasingly held people in solitary confinement and continued to refuse to allow independent psychological evaluations. The United States government is responsible for this man’s death and must be held accountable," said Wells Dixon, Staff Attorney for the CCR Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative. "By refusing to hear the men's cases or exercise any oversight of their conditions, the judiciary contributed further to the desperation of the detainees, and Congress, in failing to restore the fundamental right of habeas corpus, dealt the final blow."
This death comes nearly one year after the deaths of three men at Guantánamo on June 10, 2006. The Government has still provided extremely limited information to the families and lawyers of the deceased, and challenged an attempt to preserve evidence related to the deaths.
"The legal black hole of Guantanamo is an unconscionable mistake," said Michael Ratner, President of CCR. "Nearly three years ago, the Supreme Court in Rasul held that Guantanamo detainees have the right to challenge their detention. The right of habeas corpus must be restored and Guantanamo must be closed. No one else should have to die because of this tragic mistake."
CCR has requested the identification of the deceased from the Department of Justice, and has demanded that the military preserve all evidence related to the deaths and the deceased. CCR has received no response yet from the Department of Justice.
About CCR
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is a non-profit legal and educational organization dedicated to protecting and advancing the rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights demonstrators in the South, CCR is committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change. www.ccr-ny.org
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How does that make you feel? I thought I'd write about L&D tonight. But I really don't see how. I thought it be a serious post with a few laughs. But that's four dead now. Will the next number be the one that wakes us up? Will we care then? Or is it just something will shrug over?
We're not still pretending "terrorists," are we? Terrorists would have been put on a trial. A big and showy trial to prove to the world Bully Boy's plan had worked. This is the man who embarrassed himself by strutting on a ship with "Mission Accomplished" behind him. You don't think he'd love a "slam dunk"?
But these prisoners do not get trials. They just get held day after day, year after year and it's really going to take us screaming no to end this.
How long could you take that? Five years? You don't think you'd have gone crazy before that?
They say that this guy who died was from Saudi Arabia and that he trained with US forces awhile back before he allegedly joined the Taliban. Allegedly because they grab people and turn them in for rewards. That's one of the realities about Guantanamo.
That's probably why they can't do trials. They have nothing on the people and they'd have to reveal how they ended up imprisoned to begin with.
I remember the 20 minutes of one day in high school that we spent on the internment of the Japanese Americans during WWII. We were all pretty self-righteous. More self-righteous than we were outraged, if you ask me. Our attitude was something like, "What losers. We'd never be that stupid to do something like that." We thought we were so much better than the Americans who had stayed silent while Japanese Americans were wrongly imprisoned.
But we're really not. We've allowed ourselves to be scared by the government to the point that we say, "Do what you want, just don't tell us!" That's what happened then too. The Japanese Americans were scapegoated and wrongly imprisoned. If Americans had demanded justice then it wouldn't have gone on and on. And if we demanded justice now, Guantanamo would be closed. So 40 years down the line, expect a lot of high schools students to laugh at how stupid we were today.
They'll think "losers." They'll think, "It could never happen today." All it takes is an administration that doesn't believe in the law or the Constitution and Americans who refuse to demand that the government honor the Constitution they took an oath to uphold.
See that's the really dirty secret of today: You don't even have to believe the people at Guantanamo are innocent, you just have to believe in the Constitution. You just have to be willing to say: "Give them a trial." But if you don't believe in the Constitution, you won't do that. You'll hide behind "they're terrorists" and pretend like that justifies not allowing real trials. If they're really terrorists, don't you think the American people have a right to know about it? Don't you think families and friends who lost loved ones on 9-11 have a right to know about it?
But if you don't believe in the Constitution, if you don't believe in justice, just keep staying silent and do nothing. That's the USSR way, right? Oh wait, this is the United States, where we're supposed to believe in speaking out and believe in open justice.
So that's what I wanted to write about tonight or, really, what I felt like I needed to write about tonight. I really wanted a fun post tonight and this isn't that.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
May 31, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the US military attempts to bully a soldier on his way out (14 days before he leaves, they set up a kangaroo court), the US military announces the death of more US soldiers, Joe Lieberman takes his sour charm to Baghdad and avoids the truth (again), and more.
Starting with Adam Kokesh who is currently in the Individual Ready Reserve through June 18th and had the status of honorably discharged. What concerns us today (we noted this on May 23rd), and we better go slowly because AP gets lost on the details, is what's happening today. In March, Iraq Veterans Against the War took part in DC actions to bring the war home. Adam Kokesh participated in that action wearing fatigues. Following that, the military contacted him and we have to say "the military" because the coward who e-mailed him is too chicken sh*t to be known publicly. This is the point at which AP, in a throwback to their THEY-ALL-WALKED-OUT! Pearl Jam coverage, misses the point.
They leap to "Kokesh, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, responded with an obscenity." Major Chicken Sh*t wrote an e-mail brimming with sarcasm "I know this matter pales in comparsion with recent geopolitical events of which you have shown an interest" being only one example. And "I have a desire to let a fellow Marine know about his obligations and duty" may be folksy but it's not military standard (which is why Kokesh and Tina Richards both wondered if the e-mail was genuine). On line 43 of Kokesh's 44 lined e-mail, the f-word is used. AP reporting that Kokesh was sent "a letter" and that he "responded with an obscenity" is bad reporting. No "letter" was exchanged by either side. (Though an official letter, registered, should have been sent through the United States postal service by the military if they are investigating anyone in IRR.) And Kokesh did not respond to "a letter" with "an obscenity." He responded at length (44 lines). And let's just repeat that point outside of parentheticals: If the US military is investigating someone, the US military's means of contact needs to be official, written in an official manner -- not folksy, sarcastic e-mail. (Again, Kokesh showed the e-mail to Cloy Richards mother Tina and they both wondered about its authenticity.)
Kevin Zeese (Democracy Rising) observes, "The implications of this hearing may be far reaching, as the prosecution of a member of the inactive reserves under these circumstances is unprecedented. At stake is the right of freedom of speech for the hundreds of thousands of members of the Inactive Ready Reserve, as well as the nation's right to get the unbiased truth out of Iraq. Last week, the prosecuting attorney, Captain Sibert, offered Kokesh a general discharge. To accept this would be to allow the Marines to say that members of the IRR do not have freedom of speech, so naturally he declined." The AP notes one of Kokesh's attorneys, Mike "Lebowitz [,] said Kokesh technically is a civilian unless recalled to active duty and had the right to be disrespectful in his response to the officer. He called the proceedings against Kokesh highly unusual and said the military usually seeks to change a veteran's discharge status only if a crime has been committed."
Kevin Zeese reports, "The hearing will be held on June 4, at the Marine Corps Mobilization Command in Kansas City, MO. Kokesh requested the hearing be held closer to Washington, DC, his current residence and a much more convenient location for the witnesses to the event in question, which happened in Washington, but was denied. He has the right to call witnesses, but has to provide for their transportation." Dave Helling (The Kansas City Star) notes, "If the tribunal answers yes, Kokesh will face the punishment a Marine Corps deputy commander has recommended in his case -- immediate discharge from the individual ready reserves, and the reduction of his original honorable active duty discharge to an other-than-honorable characterization of service. Kokesh is fighting both sanctions, he says, because he wants to protect the rights of others in the military to argue against the war." David Montgomery (Washington Post) notes that there are two others the military is going after -- one can't be determined, the other is "Liam Madden, 22, who spent seven months on the ground in Iraq, last fall helped launch the Appeal for Redress, a Web site where military personnel can directly appeal to Congress to support withdrawal of troops. Madden, of Boston, is accused of wearing his caouflage shirt at an antiwar march in Washington in January. He also is accused of making disloyal statement during a speech in February in New York, when he says he wasn't wearing his uniform." June 1st (tomorrow), there will be a press conference and Send off Rally at Union Station (in DC) for Adam Kokesh and then the Yellow Rose of Texas Peace Bus will head for Kansas City, MO.
As the military continues to crack down the war resistance movement within the US military continues to grow and that includes people such as Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Augstin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.
Turning to Iraq where the military wants you to forget that 2 US soldiers remain missing since May 12 and the press is happy to distract you from that reality by heavy panting over the missing 5 British contractors. Reuters reports that "an Iraqi husband and wife employed by the US embassy in Baghdad" were kidnapped last week and the Islamic State in Iraq is claiming credit for the kidnapping and stating that they killed the couple Monday. They were Iraqis so there was apparently no need to send 9,000 US service members to look for them. But there is plenty of time for US service members to be used searching for 5 British citizens who elected to go to Iraq to profit from the illegal war. For the record, when the search for the then-3 missing US soldiers was going on it was billed as a US and Iraq joint-operation -- no British soldiers were brought up from, for instance, Basra to help in that search. But this is about Big Business so everyone has to drop what they were doing and go searching. Not unlike when the death of mercenaries led to the attacks on Falluja.
As if that wasn't bad enough, US service members also had to endure a visit with Senator I Will Say Anything And Sell At Anyone Just To Keep My Senate Seat. Though this century's Zell Miller has yet to embrace the GOP designation, he's all Repube. Joe Lieberman (who destroyed the 2000 recounts in his vanity appearance on NBC's Meet the Press) went to Iraq where he did and will do more damage. Lelia Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) reports the water mark piece on Lieberman's visit. After a "lunch of roast beef and turkey sandwiches" No-Mentum, Joe-Mentum had the need to ride this photo op for all it was worth and used it sell the illegal war (violence apparently only bothers on movie screens and in rap lyrics) by saying "To pull out would be a disaster." That might have worked on his two wives (and explain the three children) but none of the rest of us are willing to let Jo-Jo get limp and drippy on top of us for one minutes and six seconds. Jo-Jo then used the soldiers to hide from reality, "They're not Pollyannaish about his. They know it's not going to be solved in a day or a month." Too bad for Jo-Jo's photo op, Fadel showed up before the senator and heard the soldiers. David Williams had "two note cards" with questions from "30 other soldiers" and the biggest one: "When are we going to get out of here." Williams told Fadel that returning for his tour in Iraq mean that he missed the birth of his child and "I didn't want to come back. . . . We're waiting to get blown up." Will Hedin tells Fadel, "We're not making any progress. It just seems like we drive around and wait to get shot at."
Then Jo-Jo crawled in with an announcement of "To pull out would be a disaster" and other assorted ass wipings. Is it any wonder the soldiers didn't speak frankly? No, and it's no surprise that Joe Lieberman can't see reality even when it sits down next to him.
Meanwhile Donald C. Hudson Jr. pens an op-ed from Iraq (Clarksville Online): ". . . I have been serving our country's military actively for the last three years. I am currently deployed to Baghdad on Forward Operating Base Loyalty, where I have been for the last four and a half months. I came here as part of the first wave of this so called 'troop surge', but so far it has effectively done nothing to quell insurgent violence. I have seen the rise in violence between the Sunni and Shiite. This country is in the middle of a civil war that has been on going since the seventh century. Why are we here when this country still to date does not want us here? Why does our president's personal agenda consume him so much, that he can not pay attention wo what is really going on here? Let me tell you a story. On May 10, I was out on a convoy mission to move barriers from a market to a joint security station. It was no different from any other night, except the improvised explosive device that hit our convoy this time, actually pierced through the armor of one of our trucks. The truck was immediately engulfed in flames, the driver lost control and wrecked the truck into one of the buildings lining the street. I was the driver of the lead truck in our convoy; the fifth out of six was the one that got hit. All I could hear over the radio was a friend from the sixth truck screaming that the fifth truck was burning up real bad, and that they needed fire extinguishers real bad. So I turned my truck around and drove through concrete barriers to get to the burning truck as quickly as I could. I stopped 30 meters short of the burning truck, got out and ripped my fire extinguisher out of its holder, and ran to the truck. I ran past another friend of mine on the way to the burning truck, he was screaming something but I could not make it out. I opened the driver's door to the truck and was immediately overcome by the flames. I sprayed the extinguisher into the door, and then I saw my roommate's leg. He was the gunner of that truck. His leg was across the driver's seat that was on fire and the rest of his body was further in the truck. My fire extinguisher died and I climbed into the truck to attempt to save him. I got to where his head was, in the back passenger-side seat. I grabbed his shoulders and attempted to pull him from the truck out the driver's door. I finally got him out of the truck head first. His face had been badly burned. His leg was horribly wounded. We placed him on a spine board and did our best to attempt 'Buddy Aid'. We heard him trying to gasp for air. He had a pulse and was breathing, but was not responsive. He was placed into a truck and rushed to the 'Green Zone', where he died within the hour. His name was Michael K. Frank. He was 36 years old. He was a great friend of mine and a mentor to most of us younger soldiers here. Now I am still here in this country wondering why, and having to pick up the pieces of what is left of my friend in our room. I would just like to know what is the true reason we are here? This country poses no threat to our own. So why must we waste the lives of good men on a country that does not give a damn about itself? Most of my friends here share my views, but do not have the courage to say anything." Nobody tell Joe Lieberman about that -- he still thinks because he went on a heavily guarded tour he knows, really knows, reality in Iraq.
Editor & Publisher notes actual reality: a new Gallup poll asked participants what they would tell Bully Boy about Iraq if they had 15 minutes? 565: "focus on getting out of Iraq," 6% own your mistakes and admit them, 7% work with the UN and study groups. And representing the mentally unbalanced, the Joe Liebermans and gag writers everywhere, 4% would tell the Bully to stay in Iraq. (I'm sure a large number would voice support for sending Bully Boy to serve in Iraq, but that wasn't asked.)
In Iraq today . . .
Bombings?
Sinan Salaheddin (AP) reports that a bombing in Falluja killed "as many as 25 people" and noted a funeral procession ("some of the women wailing and beating their chests, marched through Sadr City") in response to a "U.S. helicopter strike before dawn" that killed two people and which the US military denies but Iraqi police confirm. Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports three people wounded in a roadside Baghdad bombing, a Ramadi truck bombing that killed one person (wounded 13), and a Kirkuk roadside bombing that wounded four. Reuters notes that the Ramadi bombing's death toll has risen to 5, a Baghdad car bombing wounded 2 Iraqi adults, 1 child and 8 US soldiers, 2 roadside bombs in Tal Afar resulted in the death of 1 Iraqi soldier and five people wounded (four police officers, 1 Iraqi soldier), and a Tal Afar rocket attack killed one person.
Shootings?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a police officer was shot dead in Baghdad, one police officer was wounded by "a sniper" in Tikrit and "Dr. Muhammad Aziz, who works as a lecturer at Fine Arts Academy in Basra" was shot dead. Reuters reports a home invasion in Iskandariya left tribal leader Ubaid al-Masoudi and his wife injured.
Corpses?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 29 corpses were discovered in Baghdad, 1 in Zubair, and 3 corpses discovered in Baquba. Reuters reports five corpses were discovered in Mosul.
Today the US military announced: "While conducting combat operations northwest of the Iraqi capital, a Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldier was seriously wounded when an improvised explosive device detonated May 28. The Soldier was taken to the Combat Support Hospital but died of wounds May 29." And they announced: "While conducting combat operations in the southwest section of the Iraqi capital, two Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldiers were killed when an improvised explosive device detonated May 30." The three deaths bring the number of US service members killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war to 3474 thus far and May's toll to 123 thus far. Only April and November of 2004 have had higher monthly tolls (135 and 137). The four year mark was passed in March and, along with boots on the ground, the only things escalating are death tolls, chaos and violence.
Peace Mom Cindy Sheehan's decision to take time to recharge and refocus continues to be noted. Amy Branham (Amy's Head) writes, "I don't know of anyone who could stand up under the pressure that Cindy has been in, who could stand up to the nastiness, the lies, the ignorance, the threats, the mind and body numbing travel schedule. All I do know is that I'm glad to see my friend take a break a while. And I do agree with her when she says that if the American people don't step up to end this war, we deserve what we get." Danny Schechter (writing at Common Dreams) observes:
Personally, I know how she feels. When I made the film, WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception) challenging the media role in the war, many anti-war groups paid lip service to its message and then did little or nothing to promote it. Perhaps that's why some activists call MoveOn.org "Walkon.org" when it comes to the issues of media deception or for that matter any issues that also holds Democrats and corporate media institutions accountable.It is so much easier and emotionally self-righteous to attack easier targets like the Republicans and Bush White House.Lets face it, the media has not really changed and nor have many Democrats. They believe in convenient truths and don't recognize the importance of demanding media integrity. Don't forget that most of the media coverage was hostile to Democrats setting a timeline and many pundits pressured them to relent in the name of "pragmatism," patriotism, or getting the pork they wanted for their own districts.I don't think Cindy has really resigned from politics. But she is upset and has a right to be. She has lost so much and is also apparently in debt--something this director of the film In Debt We Trust can relate toSometimes I wish I could resign from the media reform movement that I helped organize because it has been so hard for us to get support for Mediachannel.org, our fabulous media and democracy online network now in its 7th year. We will have to close our doors in a month unless we can find the funding to keep our modest operation alive.
And remember independent journalist John Pilger is on a speaking tour with his new book Freedom Next Time and his documentary Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror (which looks at DC, Afghanistan and Iraq). June 7th, he will discuss his book with Amy Goodman at The New School, Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12th Street, beginning at 7:00 pm (doors open at 6:15). Admission is $5 per person and students (with ID) can attend for free. Pilger will sign copies of his book afterwards and Amy Goodman will sign copies of her latest book (written with her brother David Goodman) Static. "For ticket information, contact (212) 229-5488 or boxoffice@newschool.edu. For media inquiries, contact (212) 209-5407 or ruth@nationbooks.org For more information, click here or e-mail pilgerny@gmail.com."
June 11th, Pilger will be in Los Angeles at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (244 S. San Pedro St.) and will discuss his book and show his documentary beginning at 7:00 pm (doors open at 6:00 pm). The price of admission to the even is five dollars. "Directions, maps, and parking info at: http://www.jaccc.org/directions.htm
Presented by The Center for Economic Research and Social Change, and The Nation Institute, with support from the Wallace Global Fund. For ticket information, call or visit the JACCC. Box office: 213-680-3700 (Box Office Hours: Monday - Saturday: Noon - 5 pm)For media inquiries, contact (212) 209-5407 or ruth@nationbooks.org For more information, email pilger.la@gmail.com."
June 13th finds him in San Francisco showing his film and discussing his book at Yerba Beuna Center for Arts (beginning at 7:00 pm, doors open at 6:00 pm) and the price of admission is $15 general and $5 for students. "Presented by The Center for Economic Research and Social Change, The Nation Institute, and KPFA, with support from the Wallace Global Fund. For ticket information, call 415-978-2787 or order online at http://www.ybca.org/. In person tickets at YBCA Box office located inside the Galleries and Forum Building, 701 Mission Street at Third. (Hours: Tue, Wed, Fri, Sat & Sun: noon - 5 pm; Thu: noon - 8 pm.) For media inquiries, contact (212) 209-5407 or ruth@nationbooks.org For more information, email pilgersf@gmail.com."
From San Francisco, he moves on to Chicago for the 2007 Socialism conference. At 11:30 am Saturday June 16th, he and Anthony Arnove will participate in a conversation, audience dialogue and book signing (Arnove is the author most recently of IRAQ: The Logic of Withdrawal) and that evening (still June 16th) at 7:30 Pilger will be at Chicago Crowne Plaza O'Hare (5440 North River Road, Rosemont, IL 60018) as part of a panel of international activists. To attend the conference, the fee is $85. For Saturday and Sunday only, the price is $70. To attend only one session, the cost is ten dollars. "Presented by The Center for Economic Research and Social Change, The Nation Institute, with support from the Wallace Global Fund. Co-sponsors: Obrera Socialista, Socialist Worker, International Socialist Review, and Haymarket Books. For ticket information, call 773-583-8665 or e-mail info@socialismconference.org For media inquiries, contact (212) 209-5407 or ruth@nationbooks.org. For more information, email info@socialismconference.org."
The Socialism 2007 conference will take place in Chicago from June 14-17. Along with Pilger and Arnove, others participating will include Dahr Jamail, Laura Flanders, Kelly Dougherty, Joshua Frank, Amy Goodman, Sharon Smith, Dave Zirin, Camilo Mejia, Jeremy Scahill, Jeffrey St. Clair and many others.
the center for constitutional right
law and disorder
the common ills
mikey likes it
iraq
iraq veterans against the war
danny schechter
the washington postmcclatchy newspapers
Remember that Day of Action to Restore Law and Justice - June 26, 2007 happens in June and remember that it's been five years and counting that prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have been denied the justice that we are supposed to support and practice in the United States. This is a link from the Center for Constitutional Rights:
Send a letter to your representatives demanding the restoration of habeas corpus
That'll let you write your reps and say, "Stop it! Bring back justice!" And we need to and if you don't think we do . . . C.I. e-mailed me this press release from CCR, "Center For Constitutional Rights Condemns Death of Fourth Guantanamo Prisoner:"
NEW YORK - MAY 31 - The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) today condemned the death of a fourth prisoner held without charge or trial at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The detainee is Saudi but has not yet been identified by the Department of Defense.
"In the last year, the conditions at Guantanamo have become even more bleak: the military has increasingly held people in solitary confinement and continued to refuse to allow independent psychological evaluations. The United States government is responsible for this man’s death and must be held accountable," said Wells Dixon, Staff Attorney for the CCR Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative. "By refusing to hear the men's cases or exercise any oversight of their conditions, the judiciary contributed further to the desperation of the detainees, and Congress, in failing to restore the fundamental right of habeas corpus, dealt the final blow."
This death comes nearly one year after the deaths of three men at Guantánamo on June 10, 2006. The Government has still provided extremely limited information to the families and lawyers of the deceased, and challenged an attempt to preserve evidence related to the deaths.
"The legal black hole of Guantanamo is an unconscionable mistake," said Michael Ratner, President of CCR. "Nearly three years ago, the Supreme Court in Rasul held that Guantanamo detainees have the right to challenge their detention. The right of habeas corpus must be restored and Guantanamo must be closed. No one else should have to die because of this tragic mistake."
CCR has requested the identification of the deceased from the Department of Justice, and has demanded that the military preserve all evidence related to the deaths and the deceased. CCR has received no response yet from the Department of Justice.
About CCR
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is a non-profit legal and educational organization dedicated to protecting and advancing the rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights demonstrators in the South, CCR is committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change. www.ccr-ny.org
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How does that make you feel? I thought I'd write about L&D tonight. But I really don't see how. I thought it be a serious post with a few laughs. But that's four dead now. Will the next number be the one that wakes us up? Will we care then? Or is it just something will shrug over?
We're not still pretending "terrorists," are we? Terrorists would have been put on a trial. A big and showy trial to prove to the world Bully Boy's plan had worked. This is the man who embarrassed himself by strutting on a ship with "Mission Accomplished" behind him. You don't think he'd love a "slam dunk"?
But these prisoners do not get trials. They just get held day after day, year after year and it's really going to take us screaming no to end this.
How long could you take that? Five years? You don't think you'd have gone crazy before that?
They say that this guy who died was from Saudi Arabia and that he trained with US forces awhile back before he allegedly joined the Taliban. Allegedly because they grab people and turn them in for rewards. That's one of the realities about Guantanamo.
That's probably why they can't do trials. They have nothing on the people and they'd have to reveal how they ended up imprisoned to begin with.
I remember the 20 minutes of one day in high school that we spent on the internment of the Japanese Americans during WWII. We were all pretty self-righteous. More self-righteous than we were outraged, if you ask me. Our attitude was something like, "What losers. We'd never be that stupid to do something like that." We thought we were so much better than the Americans who had stayed silent while Japanese Americans were wrongly imprisoned.
But we're really not. We've allowed ourselves to be scared by the government to the point that we say, "Do what you want, just don't tell us!" That's what happened then too. The Japanese Americans were scapegoated and wrongly imprisoned. If Americans had demanded justice then it wouldn't have gone on and on. And if we demanded justice now, Guantanamo would be closed. So 40 years down the line, expect a lot of high schools students to laugh at how stupid we were today.
They'll think "losers." They'll think, "It could never happen today." All it takes is an administration that doesn't believe in the law or the Constitution and Americans who refuse to demand that the government honor the Constitution they took an oath to uphold.
See that's the really dirty secret of today: You don't even have to believe the people at Guantanamo are innocent, you just have to believe in the Constitution. You just have to be willing to say: "Give them a trial." But if you don't believe in the Constitution, you won't do that. You'll hide behind "they're terrorists" and pretend like that justifies not allowing real trials. If they're really terrorists, don't you think the American people have a right to know about it? Don't you think families and friends who lost loved ones on 9-11 have a right to know about it?
But if you don't believe in the Constitution, if you don't believe in justice, just keep staying silent and do nothing. That's the USSR way, right? Oh wait, this is the United States, where we're supposed to believe in speaking out and believe in open justice.
So that's what I wanted to write about tonight or, really, what I felt like I needed to write about tonight. I really wanted a fun post tonight and this isn't that.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
May 31, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the US military attempts to bully a soldier on his way out (14 days before he leaves, they set up a kangaroo court), the US military announces the death of more US soldiers, Joe Lieberman takes his sour charm to Baghdad and avoids the truth (again), and more.
Starting with Adam Kokesh who is currently in the Individual Ready Reserve through June 18th and had the status of honorably discharged. What concerns us today (we noted this on May 23rd), and we better go slowly because AP gets lost on the details, is what's happening today. In March, Iraq Veterans Against the War took part in DC actions to bring the war home. Adam Kokesh participated in that action wearing fatigues. Following that, the military contacted him and we have to say "the military" because the coward who e-mailed him is too chicken sh*t to be known publicly. This is the point at which AP, in a throwback to their THEY-ALL-WALKED-OUT! Pearl Jam coverage, misses the point.
They leap to "Kokesh, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, responded with an obscenity." Major Chicken Sh*t wrote an e-mail brimming with sarcasm "I know this matter pales in comparsion with recent geopolitical events of which you have shown an interest" being only one example. And "I have a desire to let a fellow Marine know about his obligations and duty" may be folksy but it's not military standard (which is why Kokesh and Tina Richards both wondered if the e-mail was genuine). On line 43 of Kokesh's 44 lined e-mail, the f-word is used. AP reporting that Kokesh was sent "a letter" and that he "responded with an obscenity" is bad reporting. No "letter" was exchanged by either side. (Though an official letter, registered, should have been sent through the United States postal service by the military if they are investigating anyone in IRR.) And Kokesh did not respond to "a letter" with "an obscenity." He responded at length (44 lines). And let's just repeat that point outside of parentheticals: If the US military is investigating someone, the US military's means of contact needs to be official, written in an official manner -- not folksy, sarcastic e-mail. (Again, Kokesh showed the e-mail to Cloy Richards mother Tina and they both wondered about its authenticity.)
Kevin Zeese (Democracy Rising) observes, "The implications of this hearing may be far reaching, as the prosecution of a member of the inactive reserves under these circumstances is unprecedented. At stake is the right of freedom of speech for the hundreds of thousands of members of the Inactive Ready Reserve, as well as the nation's right to get the unbiased truth out of Iraq. Last week, the prosecuting attorney, Captain Sibert, offered Kokesh a general discharge. To accept this would be to allow the Marines to say that members of the IRR do not have freedom of speech, so naturally he declined." The AP notes one of Kokesh's attorneys, Mike "Lebowitz [,] said Kokesh technically is a civilian unless recalled to active duty and had the right to be disrespectful in his response to the officer. He called the proceedings against Kokesh highly unusual and said the military usually seeks to change a veteran's discharge status only if a crime has been committed."
Kevin Zeese reports, "The hearing will be held on June 4, at the Marine Corps Mobilization Command in Kansas City, MO. Kokesh requested the hearing be held closer to Washington, DC, his current residence and a much more convenient location for the witnesses to the event in question, which happened in Washington, but was denied. He has the right to call witnesses, but has to provide for their transportation." Dave Helling (The Kansas City Star) notes, "If the tribunal answers yes, Kokesh will face the punishment a Marine Corps deputy commander has recommended in his case -- immediate discharge from the individual ready reserves, and the reduction of his original honorable active duty discharge to an other-than-honorable characterization of service. Kokesh is fighting both sanctions, he says, because he wants to protect the rights of others in the military to argue against the war." David Montgomery (Washington Post) notes that there are two others the military is going after -- one can't be determined, the other is "Liam Madden, 22, who spent seven months on the ground in Iraq, last fall helped launch the Appeal for Redress, a Web site where military personnel can directly appeal to Congress to support withdrawal of troops. Madden, of Boston, is accused of wearing his caouflage shirt at an antiwar march in Washington in January. He also is accused of making disloyal statement during a speech in February in New York, when he says he wasn't wearing his uniform." June 1st (tomorrow), there will be a press conference and Send off Rally at Union Station (in DC) for Adam Kokesh and then the Yellow Rose of Texas Peace Bus will head for Kansas City, MO.
As the military continues to crack down the war resistance movement within the US military continues to grow and that includes people such as Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Augstin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.
Turning to Iraq where the military wants you to forget that 2 US soldiers remain missing since May 12 and the press is happy to distract you from that reality by heavy panting over the missing 5 British contractors. Reuters reports that "an Iraqi husband and wife employed by the US embassy in Baghdad" were kidnapped last week and the Islamic State in Iraq is claiming credit for the kidnapping and stating that they killed the couple Monday. They were Iraqis so there was apparently no need to send 9,000 US service members to look for them. But there is plenty of time for US service members to be used searching for 5 British citizens who elected to go to Iraq to profit from the illegal war. For the record, when the search for the then-3 missing US soldiers was going on it was billed as a US and Iraq joint-operation -- no British soldiers were brought up from, for instance, Basra to help in that search. But this is about Big Business so everyone has to drop what they were doing and go searching. Not unlike when the death of mercenaries led to the attacks on Falluja.
As if that wasn't bad enough, US service members also had to endure a visit with Senator I Will Say Anything And Sell At Anyone Just To Keep My Senate Seat. Though this century's Zell Miller has yet to embrace the GOP designation, he's all Repube. Joe Lieberman (who destroyed the 2000 recounts in his vanity appearance on NBC's Meet the Press) went to Iraq where he did and will do more damage. Lelia Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) reports the water mark piece on Lieberman's visit. After a "lunch of roast beef and turkey sandwiches" No-Mentum, Joe-Mentum had the need to ride this photo op for all it was worth and used it sell the illegal war (violence apparently only bothers on movie screens and in rap lyrics) by saying "To pull out would be a disaster." That might have worked on his two wives (and explain the three children) but none of the rest of us are willing to let Jo-Jo get limp and drippy on top of us for one minutes and six seconds. Jo-Jo then used the soldiers to hide from reality, "They're not Pollyannaish about his. They know it's not going to be solved in a day or a month." Too bad for Jo-Jo's photo op, Fadel showed up before the senator and heard the soldiers. David Williams had "two note cards" with questions from "30 other soldiers" and the biggest one: "When are we going to get out of here." Williams told Fadel that returning for his tour in Iraq mean that he missed the birth of his child and "I didn't want to come back. . . . We're waiting to get blown up." Will Hedin tells Fadel, "We're not making any progress. It just seems like we drive around and wait to get shot at."
Then Jo-Jo crawled in with an announcement of "To pull out would be a disaster" and other assorted ass wipings. Is it any wonder the soldiers didn't speak frankly? No, and it's no surprise that Joe Lieberman can't see reality even when it sits down next to him.
Meanwhile Donald C. Hudson Jr. pens an op-ed from Iraq (Clarksville Online): ". . . I have been serving our country's military actively for the last three years. I am currently deployed to Baghdad on Forward Operating Base Loyalty, where I have been for the last four and a half months. I came here as part of the first wave of this so called 'troop surge', but so far it has effectively done nothing to quell insurgent violence. I have seen the rise in violence between the Sunni and Shiite. This country is in the middle of a civil war that has been on going since the seventh century. Why are we here when this country still to date does not want us here? Why does our president's personal agenda consume him so much, that he can not pay attention wo what is really going on here? Let me tell you a story. On May 10, I was out on a convoy mission to move barriers from a market to a joint security station. It was no different from any other night, except the improvised explosive device that hit our convoy this time, actually pierced through the armor of one of our trucks. The truck was immediately engulfed in flames, the driver lost control and wrecked the truck into one of the buildings lining the street. I was the driver of the lead truck in our convoy; the fifth out of six was the one that got hit. All I could hear over the radio was a friend from the sixth truck screaming that the fifth truck was burning up real bad, and that they needed fire extinguishers real bad. So I turned my truck around and drove through concrete barriers to get to the burning truck as quickly as I could. I stopped 30 meters short of the burning truck, got out and ripped my fire extinguisher out of its holder, and ran to the truck. I ran past another friend of mine on the way to the burning truck, he was screaming something but I could not make it out. I opened the driver's door to the truck and was immediately overcome by the flames. I sprayed the extinguisher into the door, and then I saw my roommate's leg. He was the gunner of that truck. His leg was across the driver's seat that was on fire and the rest of his body was further in the truck. My fire extinguisher died and I climbed into the truck to attempt to save him. I got to where his head was, in the back passenger-side seat. I grabbed his shoulders and attempted to pull him from the truck out the driver's door. I finally got him out of the truck head first. His face had been badly burned. His leg was horribly wounded. We placed him on a spine board and did our best to attempt 'Buddy Aid'. We heard him trying to gasp for air. He had a pulse and was breathing, but was not responsive. He was placed into a truck and rushed to the 'Green Zone', where he died within the hour. His name was Michael K. Frank. He was 36 years old. He was a great friend of mine and a mentor to most of us younger soldiers here. Now I am still here in this country wondering why, and having to pick up the pieces of what is left of my friend in our room. I would just like to know what is the true reason we are here? This country poses no threat to our own. So why must we waste the lives of good men on a country that does not give a damn about itself? Most of my friends here share my views, but do not have the courage to say anything." Nobody tell Joe Lieberman about that -- he still thinks because he went on a heavily guarded tour he knows, really knows, reality in Iraq.
Editor & Publisher notes actual reality: a new Gallup poll asked participants what they would tell Bully Boy about Iraq if they had 15 minutes? 565: "focus on getting out of Iraq," 6% own your mistakes and admit them, 7% work with the UN and study groups. And representing the mentally unbalanced, the Joe Liebermans and gag writers everywhere, 4% would tell the Bully to stay in Iraq. (I'm sure a large number would voice support for sending Bully Boy to serve in Iraq, but that wasn't asked.)
In Iraq today . . .
Bombings?
Sinan Salaheddin (AP) reports that a bombing in Falluja killed "as many as 25 people" and noted a funeral procession ("some of the women wailing and beating their chests, marched through Sadr City") in response to a "U.S. helicopter strike before dawn" that killed two people and which the US military denies but Iraqi police confirm. Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports three people wounded in a roadside Baghdad bombing, a Ramadi truck bombing that killed one person (wounded 13), and a Kirkuk roadside bombing that wounded four. Reuters notes that the Ramadi bombing's death toll has risen to 5, a Baghdad car bombing wounded 2 Iraqi adults, 1 child and 8 US soldiers, 2 roadside bombs in Tal Afar resulted in the death of 1 Iraqi soldier and five people wounded (four police officers, 1 Iraqi soldier), and a Tal Afar rocket attack killed one person.
Shootings?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a police officer was shot dead in Baghdad, one police officer was wounded by "a sniper" in Tikrit and "Dr. Muhammad Aziz, who works as a lecturer at Fine Arts Academy in Basra" was shot dead. Reuters reports a home invasion in Iskandariya left tribal leader Ubaid al-Masoudi and his wife injured.
Corpses?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 29 corpses were discovered in Baghdad, 1 in Zubair, and 3 corpses discovered in Baquba. Reuters reports five corpses were discovered in Mosul.
Today the US military announced: "While conducting combat operations northwest of the Iraqi capital, a Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldier was seriously wounded when an improvised explosive device detonated May 28. The Soldier was taken to the Combat Support Hospital but died of wounds May 29." And they announced: "While conducting combat operations in the southwest section of the Iraqi capital, two Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldiers were killed when an improvised explosive device detonated May 30." The three deaths bring the number of US service members killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war to 3474 thus far and May's toll to 123 thus far. Only April and November of 2004 have had higher monthly tolls (135 and 137). The four year mark was passed in March and, along with boots on the ground, the only things escalating are death tolls, chaos and violence.
Peace Mom Cindy Sheehan's decision to take time to recharge and refocus continues to be noted. Amy Branham (Amy's Head) writes, "I don't know of anyone who could stand up under the pressure that Cindy has been in, who could stand up to the nastiness, the lies, the ignorance, the threats, the mind and body numbing travel schedule. All I do know is that I'm glad to see my friend take a break a while. And I do agree with her when she says that if the American people don't step up to end this war, we deserve what we get." Danny Schechter (writing at Common Dreams) observes:
Personally, I know how she feels. When I made the film, WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception) challenging the media role in the war, many anti-war groups paid lip service to its message and then did little or nothing to promote it. Perhaps that's why some activists call MoveOn.org "Walkon.org" when it comes to the issues of media deception or for that matter any issues that also holds Democrats and corporate media institutions accountable.It is so much easier and emotionally self-righteous to attack easier targets like the Republicans and Bush White House.Lets face it, the media has not really changed and nor have many Democrats. They believe in convenient truths and don't recognize the importance of demanding media integrity. Don't forget that most of the media coverage was hostile to Democrats setting a timeline and many pundits pressured them to relent in the name of "pragmatism," patriotism, or getting the pork they wanted for their own districts.I don't think Cindy has really resigned from politics. But she is upset and has a right to be. She has lost so much and is also apparently in debt--something this director of the film In Debt We Trust can relate toSometimes I wish I could resign from the media reform movement that I helped organize because it has been so hard for us to get support for Mediachannel.org, our fabulous media and democracy online network now in its 7th year. We will have to close our doors in a month unless we can find the funding to keep our modest operation alive.
And remember independent journalist John Pilger is on a speaking tour with his new book Freedom Next Time and his documentary Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror (which looks at DC, Afghanistan and Iraq). June 7th, he will discuss his book with Amy Goodman at The New School, Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12th Street, beginning at 7:00 pm (doors open at 6:15). Admission is $5 per person and students (with ID) can attend for free. Pilger will sign copies of his book afterwards and Amy Goodman will sign copies of her latest book (written with her brother David Goodman) Static. "For ticket information, contact (212) 229-5488 or boxoffice@newschool.edu. For media inquiries, contact (212) 209-5407 or ruth@nationbooks.org For more information, click here or e-mail pilgerny@gmail.com."
June 11th, Pilger will be in Los Angeles at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (244 S. San Pedro St.) and will discuss his book and show his documentary beginning at 7:00 pm (doors open at 6:00 pm). The price of admission to the even is five dollars. "Directions, maps, and parking info at: http://www.jaccc.org/directions.htm
Presented by The Center for Economic Research and Social Change, and The Nation Institute, with support from the Wallace Global Fund. For ticket information, call or visit the JACCC. Box office: 213-680-3700 (Box Office Hours: Monday - Saturday: Noon - 5 pm)For media inquiries, contact (212) 209-5407 or ruth@nationbooks.org For more information, email pilger.la@gmail.com."
June 13th finds him in San Francisco showing his film and discussing his book at Yerba Beuna Center for Arts (beginning at 7:00 pm, doors open at 6:00 pm) and the price of admission is $15 general and $5 for students. "Presented by The Center for Economic Research and Social Change, The Nation Institute, and KPFA, with support from the Wallace Global Fund. For ticket information, call 415-978-2787 or order online at http://www.ybca.org/. In person tickets at YBCA Box office located inside the Galleries and Forum Building, 701 Mission Street at Third. (Hours: Tue, Wed, Fri, Sat & Sun: noon - 5 pm; Thu: noon - 8 pm.) For media inquiries, contact (212) 209-5407 or ruth@nationbooks.org For more information, email pilgersf@gmail.com."
From San Francisco, he moves on to Chicago for the 2007 Socialism conference. At 11:30 am Saturday June 16th, he and Anthony Arnove will participate in a conversation, audience dialogue and book signing (Arnove is the author most recently of IRAQ: The Logic of Withdrawal) and that evening (still June 16th) at 7:30 Pilger will be at Chicago Crowne Plaza O'Hare (5440 North River Road, Rosemont, IL 60018) as part of a panel of international activists. To attend the conference, the fee is $85. For Saturday and Sunday only, the price is $70. To attend only one session, the cost is ten dollars. "Presented by The Center for Economic Research and Social Change, The Nation Institute, with support from the Wallace Global Fund. Co-sponsors: Obrera Socialista, Socialist Worker, International Socialist Review, and Haymarket Books. For ticket information, call 773-583-8665 or e-mail info@socialismconference.org For media inquiries, contact (212) 209-5407 or ruth@nationbooks.org. For more information, email info@socialismconference.org."
The Socialism 2007 conference will take place in Chicago from June 14-17. Along with Pilger and Arnove, others participating will include Dahr Jamail, Laura Flanders, Kelly Dougherty, Joshua Frank, Amy Goodman, Sharon Smith, Dave Zirin, Camilo Mejia, Jeremy Scahill, Jeffrey St. Clair and many others.
the center for constitutional rightlaw and disorder
the common ills
mikey likes it
iraq
iraq veterans against the war
danny schechter
the washington postmcclatchy newspapers
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Roger Howard, Trisch Schuh
Hump day, hump day, can't trust that day. I don't know, if I had to pick, it would be a toss between Mondays and Wednesdays for which was the worst day of the week. Mondays, you really don't want the weekend to be over. You're dragging all day. You're just wanting it to get through. But you're so tired, just making it through seem like a victory by the time you're eating dinner. Wednesdays? You're not so tired and you're aware the whole time that it's not the weekend, that you've got two more days to go, and you just wonder when the weekend's going to get here. Wednesdays are like Mondays in slow motion. :D
This is Trish Schuh's "World Press Freedom in the Eyes & Ears of the Beholder:"
UNITED NATIONS- On the 14th Anniversary of World Press Freedom Day celebrated in May 3, UNESCO hosted an event for journalists called "Press Freedom, Safety of Journalists and Impunity." Under Article 1 of its Constitution, UNESCO is the only United Nations agency with a mandate to defend freedom of expression and press freedom.
United Nations Correspondent Association President Tuyet J. Nguyen spoke about the life-threatening danger faced by journalists covering such war zones as Rwanda and Iraq where the media is controlled by special interests or armed political parties.
Mr. Georges Malbrunot of France's neocon Le Figaro spoke of newsgathering under various "vicious surveillance" states- all Arab- and starting with Syria. In contrast, Malbrunot's embedding with American forces in Iraq was "not a bad solution", but opened embeddees to paranoid Arab charges of being "a spy...Its one of the major blames addressed to the foreign press today... Of course this blame is 99.9% wrong, but in the minds of these people who suffer from "conspiracy theory" this accusation is serious" and can cost a journalist his life. "There is alot of work to do to convince these groups that the journalist is not a spy." Malbrunot added that it is the work of Muslim Imams, scholars, leaders etc to persuade their Muslim flock of this fact... "Only then will the fate of the global war against terror be dramatically changed."
This writer asked the panel if journalists themselves could ever be partly responsible for such suspicions? Citing CNN's Anderson Cooper, who admitted spending his earlier summers working for the CIA: "Doesn't this kind of moonlighting put other journalists at risk?"
No response from the panel.
Representing half a million media professionals around the world on behalf of the International Federation of Journalists was Judith Matloff, a Professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and a member of the International News Safety Institute. Professor Matloff implored the international community to uphold UN Security Council Resolution 1738 which prohibits the killing and targeting of media, and protects free speech and freedom of the press globally.
In a followup conversation by telephone on May 25, I asked Prof Matloff for her opinion on how UNSCR 1738 applies to Lebanon's Al Manar TV and the LMG communications network- Lebanese media outlets bombed by Israel during the 2006 war, and officially censored as a "terrorist organization" by the US Congress.
Regarding this unprecedented, landmark free speech/censorship law, Ivy League academic Matloff said she was "unfamiliar with these situations" and refused to comment on Middle East issues. "I am an Africa specialist".
But wasn't free speech protected equally around the world under Res 1738? In the Middle East, as well as in Africa? Being a media expert, could she comment on what a law equating the media with "terrorism" could mean for freedom of the press? Concurrent with Bush's admitted deliberate bombing of Al Jazeera in Afghanistan and Iraq?
"I never heard of that," Matloff said.
With her credentials, shouldn't such Katrina-scale censorship have caught her eye?
Or perhaps she could assess how the mainstream media's advocacy of falsehoods promoted an illegal war in Iraq? "The New York Times has apologized," she said, referring to a full page 'mea culpa ad'. But isn't the NYT repeating the same misleading tactics to promote a next war in Iran?
With this and similar questions, Matloff responded like a true press "pro": avoiding ethical implications, defending her product- the status quo, and referring most answers to "other supervisors" or experts. Her refrain of "I don't know", "don't remember", "can't comment" captured the essence of a White House Press Briefing.
As a trainer of America's next generation of government "privatized propaganda contractors," (tomorrow's 'Mercenary Press') Matloff diverted the subject, passed the buck, and expertly earned her tenure...
On Press Freedom Day I spoke briefly to New York Times correspondent Warren Hoge about the media, Iraq and World Press Freedom Day.
Q: Its World Press Freedom Day and I just wanted to ask if you have any comments about The New York Times and their reporting in the runup to the Iraq War, and if you feel any kind of responsibility?
A: I can't talk about that- we've already said everything about that to be said in the paper, and I really don't want to add to it. I mean, The New York Times- more than most newspapers- has absolutely admitted what we thought was faulty and what was not. There's just nothing I can add to that at all. And I certainly don't want to talk about that on
Press Freedom Day when our thoughts are with Alan Johnston and other journalists that are being killed.
Q: Well my thoughts are also with the Iraqis. There are half a million dead- thanks in part to
your newspaper-
A: Oh come on.
Q: Your newspaper was one of the primary advocates for the war-
A: Oh come on, I can't talk to you-
Q: Your newspaper was primary- yes it was- Judith Miller got a security clearance from Donald Rumsfeld, sir-
A: The New York Times is not responsible for any dead Iraqis. I won't listen to that-
Q: None of the other American journalists but Judith Miller from your paper got a security
clearance from the US Defense Secretary himself. How is this different from working for the government?
A: You are are defiling Press Freedom Day- Shut up! This is about Press Freedom, this is not about defiling the Press. We've just come back from a demonstration for Alan Johnston for journalists being killed and that's what this day is about- Press Freedom.
Perhaps BBC World News Editor Jon Williams best summarized the outcome of shutting up the press: "We must not stand by and allow the intimidation of journalists- wherever it happens. If we do, we will pay a heavy price... There will be no eyes or ears telling us what's going on. We won't have the insight from those able to make sense of it."
But then, that may be just how the Powers That Be really want it.
(c) Trish Schuh
Uh-oh. Things may go bad for Our Modern Day Carrie Nations. Looks like more people are getting space to tell the truth. This is from Roger Howard's "Congo and Darfur: Where Anti-Arab Prejudice and Oil Make the Difference:"
In a remote corner of Africa, millions of civilians have been slaughtered in a conflict fueled by an almost genocidal ferocity that has no end in sight. Victims have been targeted because of their ethnicity and entire ethnic groups destroyed – but the outside world has turned its back, doing little to save people from the wrath of the various government and rebel militias.
You could be forgiven for thinking that this is a depiction of the Sudanese province of Darfur, racked by four years of bitter fighting. But it describes the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has received a fraction of the media attention devoted to Darfur.
The UN estimates that 3 million to 4 million Congolese have been killed, compared with the estimated 200,000 civilian deaths in Darfur. A peace deal agreed in December 2002 has never been adhered to, and atrocities have been particularly well documented in the province of Kivu – carried out by paramilitary organizations with strong governmental links. In the last month alone, thousands of civilians have been killed in heavy fighting between rebel and government forces vying for control of an area north of Goma, and the UN reckons that another 50,000 have been made refugees.
How curious, then, that so much more attention has been focused on Darfur than Congo. There are no pressure groups of any note that draw attention to the Congolese situation. In the media there is barely a word. The politicians are silent. Yet if ever there were a case for the outside world to intervene on humanitarian grounds alone – "liberal interventionism" – then surely this is it.
The key difference between the two situations lies in the racial and ethnic composition of the perceived victims and perpetrators. In Congo, black Africans are killing other black Africans in a way that is difficult for outsiders to identify with. The turmoil there can in that sense be regarded as a narrowly African affair. In Darfur the fighting is portrayed as a war between black Africans, rightly or wrongly regarded as the victims, and "Arabs," widely regarded as the perpetrators of the killings.
In practice these neat racial categories are highly indistinct, but it is through such a prism that the conflict is generally viewed. It is not hard to imagine why some in the west have found this perception so alluring, for there are numerous people who want to portray "the Arabs" in these terms. In the United States and elsewhere those who have spearheaded the case for foreign intervention in Darfur are largely the people who regard the Arabs as the root cause of the Israel-Palestine dispute.
[. . .]
Humanitarian concern among policymakers in Washington is ultimately self-interested. The United States is willing to impose new sanctions on the Sudan government if the latter refuses to accept a United Nations peacekeeping force, but it is no coincidence that Sudan, unlike Congo, has oil – lots of it – and strong links with China, a country the US regards as a strategic rival in the struggle for Africa's natural resources; only last week Amnesty International reported that Beijing has illicitly supplied Khartoum with large quantities of arms.
Sammy Powers, you big War Hawk, grab your axe! Better stop chopping before everyone catches on to what a LIAR you are and how hard you have worked to sell WAR. As an Irish-American, I'd also suggest that Samantha Powers not go home to Ireland. The Irish have enough problems without a professional shit-stirrer in their midst. And since "Powers" doesn't sound like any Catholic name I know, I'll guess that as a little War Hawk, she learned all about oppression by observing the colonizing and enslavement that was done to Irish Catholics. She's a colonoization queen and ready to spread empire whever she can. But she knows she needs to lie to people to do that. Maybe it's time we deported Sammy Powers? I'd really start a petition for that but I don't want Ireland to suffer. Of course, we could force her off on England -- that's where the invaders came from so they should take their little War Hawk back. But maybe even they don't want her. Grab the axe, Sammy Powers! Grab the axe! And don't waste my time getting one of your dumb ass groupies/zombies to e-mail me. Kiss my Irish-American-Catholic ass. That probably burns Sammy the most, that a Catholic's calling her out.
I plan to write about Law and Disorder tomorrow (I just got it in the mail today!) but C.I. does cover some of it in the snapshot. So here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Wednesday, May 30, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces 2 more deaths, Free Speech Radio News provides a first rate special, and more.
Steve Negus and Demetri Sevastopulo (Financial Times of London) report, "A series of fatalities announced on Tuesday in Iraq saw the US military's death toll rise to its highest monthly level in more than two years." Curiously (or maybe not so), the New York Times isn't interested. The story noting the 10 deaths (covered in yesterday's snapshot) isn't even worthy of a solo story. Instead it gets teamed up with the kidnapping of five people who chose to go to Iraq to make money. Five contractors (one prefers consultant) who are British and not even working for a British corporation so let's not pretend the "They wanted to serve their country!" crap is going to fly. Four were armed security guards. Currently the US army -- composed of service members who make peanuts unlike the high paid contractors -- are searching throughout Baghdad to save the five who came to Iraq hoping to line their pockets with some blood money. So it's all the more insulting that the New York Times thinks the 'perfect' thing to do is to pair the disappearance of 5 with the death of 10 who were ordered into Iraq and saw no chance of getting rich off the illegal war. After a 'shout out' paragraph two, Damien Cave forgets the US soldiers until paragraph nineteen. By contrast, the Washington Post front pages John Ward Anderson's report on how May is "the deadliest month for U.S. troops in 2 1/2 years".
Currently, the ICCC count for the total number of US service members killed in the illegal war is 3470 and the number killed in May (thus far) is 119. On Monday, Free Speech Radio News used their half-hour broadcast for a special Memorial Day look at the some of the costs of the war in US with reporter Aaron Glantz in the role of reporter and anchor. Glantz spoke with Muriel Dean whose husband was killed last Christmas. James E. Dean wasn't shot dead in Iraq, he was shot dead in Maryland. Having served 18 months in Afghanistan, suffering from PTSD and with an Iraq redployment coming up (January 14, 2007), James E. Dean went to his father's farm and holed up there, alone, with the possible intent to kill himself. Muriel Dean strongly believes that, at some point, her husband would have gotten tired, gone to sleep and, when he woke up, and left the farm. Instead, the police decided the thing to do in a situation where the farm was empty, where no neighbors were close by and where the only person James E. Dean could have hurt was himself, the thing to do was to use tear gas to force him out and then shoot him dead. The report from the review conducted by Maryland's State Attorney office deemed the police behavior "assualtive and militaristic."
Aaron Glantz: Pentagon doctors estimate that 12 percent of the 1.5 million veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Other studies put that number higher at closer to 30 percent. As the war drags on the military is increasingly sending soldiers back to Iraq for second and third tours even if they suffer from the same type of mental illness as Patrick Resta.
Glantz also spoke with Melissa and Patrick Resta who served in Al Anbar Province in Iraq and spoke of Iraqis approaching US service members with ill children but, Resta explains, that they were threatened with court-martial if they used medical supplies on anyone other than US service members. [This point is echoed in Camilo Mejia's Road from Ar Ramaid: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia.] When he returned from Iraq at the end of 2004, he was angry, unable to sleep, drinking, avoiding everyone. At Christmas, Melissa Resta asked her husband "if he wanted to split up and he told me he didn't care" which was her clue that there was something seriously wrong.
Patrick Resta has now been diagnosed with PTSD and is receiving treatment and attending college. He states: "I'm definitely not the person I was before. I was always laid back, you know relaxed, always cracking jokes and now I'm anxious and tense and have bouts of anger, have some pretty severe insomnia, have some bad nightmares and I think it's pretty standard for the men and women that have been over there. All of the people that I've talked to, it's pretty much the same -- the same set of symptons and the same problems."
Melissa Resta: There are so many of these things that I never would have thought would be a problem and now I have to think them through. The grocery store's too crowded. We also live in a city with a very high Muslim population and there are a lot of women in traditional Muslim dress and sometimes I notice that that can be unsettling for him to see that just because I think it brings back these feelings. I mean there are a lot of things that you have to take into consideration and at 27 it's not really where I had pictured myself.
Glantz also interviewed Kristy Kruger whose brother, Eric Kruger, was killed in Baghdad by a roadside bomb November 2, 2006. [Kristy Kruger, a singer-songwriter, often performs concerts to benefit her brother's four children. Donations can be sent to: The Memorial Fund for Children of LTC Eric Kruger, 6460 Crystal Mountain Rd., Colorado Springs, CO 80923.]
And Glantz interviewed doctors who treat PTSD including Dr. Col. Vito Imbascini who was stationed in Germany for four months last year where he treated US service members wounded in the war and discussed how body armor meant service members who might have lost a limb in Vietnam and suffered wounds to their chest and abdmonen that led to their deaths are now likely to survive "but be severely disabled for life" allowing "an extremely high number of wounded American soldiers are coming home with their arms or legs amputated" and, during his four months in Germany, he "amputated the genitals of one or two men every day."
Again, that is the Memorial Day special of Free Speech Radio News. Today the Daily Mail reported on Martin Packer, a British soldier who had self-checked out, and killed himself (Monday) in front of Joanne Hepple (his girlfriend) and her two songs as a result of being "tormented by what he had witnessed in" Iraq. War resisters Darrell Anderson and Joshua Key are among those who have disclosed their own PTSD. From Key's book, The Deserter's Tale (pp. 209-210):
A Canadian psychiatrist told me that you never truly emerge from post-traumatic stress disorder, that you simply learn to live with it.
There are certain things that I avoid these days, such as alcohol and crowds, because I fear they will trigger more of my own blackouts. I know that thousands of American soldiers have abused drugs or committed suicide after returning home from war. It would be easy to follow in the steps of many in my own family and drown my shame and my sorrows in alcohol. Alcohol, however, could lead to the very problem of suicidal depression that have plagued vets for generations.
Joshua Key is part of a growing movement of war resistance within the US military that includes Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Augstin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.
Today, in Iraq, the violence continues as does the breeding of hostilities. Alexandra Zavis (Los Angeles Times) reports that the raids to find the 5 British contractors is even more violent than the search to find the 3 missing US soldiers (and remember, only the corpse of one of the 3 US soldiers is confirmed found) by crashing into one Iraqi police officer's "home about 2 a.m. using an armored vehicle, cuffed and blindfolded those inside, and pointed lasers at their chests. 'They were hitting us, asking, "Where are the kidnapped British?" said the man who asked that his name not be published for fear of retribution by Western forces. 'I told them that we are five brothers in the police force. How could we do that? They said OK, then tell us where are they?" Also today, the US military has confirmed what CNN reported yesterday -- remember the days when reporting was reporting and official government statements were official government states? Rest easy outlets, you can now report what CNN did yesterday: A US helicopter was shot down Monday in Iraq (which led to the death of 2 US soldiers and 6 died while attempting to rush to the scene of the crash). Repeating, the US military has confirmed what CNN reported. Read AP here and wonder why news outlets not only wouldn't report the helicopter was shot down but they also wouldn't even report it by couching it with "CNN is reporting that . . ." In other air news, Turkey, which shares a border with Iraq, has issued a request. Turkish Daily News reports the government of Turkey "formally asked the United States not to repeat any airspace violation, following an incident last week where two US F-16 fighters infringed the Turkish air corridor." And that comes as tensions continue to mount between Turkey and the Kurdish northern Iraq. CBS and AP report, "Turkey has sent large contigents of soldiers, tanks and armored personnel carriers to reinforce its border with Iraq amid a heated debate over whether to stage a cross-border offensive to hit Kurdish rebel bases. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday urged the United States and Iraq to destroy bases of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, in northern Iraq as the Turkish military depoloyed more tanks and soldiers on the border."
Bombings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a parked car Baghdad bombing that claimed 1 life (5 wounded), 2 Baghdad mortar attacks that killed 1 person and left 6 wounded, a Baghdad bombing that killed an Iraqi soldier and three police officers were wounded from a bombing near the Basheer village. Reuters reports a Mhmudiya mortar attack that killed 3 people and left 21 wounded and a Falluja mortar attack that left 5 dead (15 wounded).
Shootings?
Alexandra Zavis (Los Angeles Times) notes the Amarah shooting death of "a journalist working with the Aswat Al-Iraq news agency". AFP notes that "three journalists had been killed in the previous three days." Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports Ala'a Abdul Razzaq Qasim (interior ministry intelligence) was shot dead in Baghdad along with two of his bodyguards, Mohammed Shakir (ministry of interior affairs) was shot dead in Baghdad, a bodyguard was shot dead in Hawija in an attack on "the head of the judicial committee of Hawija," and 3 police officers wer shot dead in Diyala province. Reuters notes a woman killed in an Mosul attack.
Corpses?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 23 corpses discovered in Baghdad.
Today the US military announced: "Two Multi-National Division-Center Soldiers were killed while on dismounted patrol when a roadside bomb exploded today."
On this week's Law and Disorder (WBAI on Monday and others throughout the ) featured Anthony Arnove's remarks from the Left Forum panel Iraq: What's At Stake (which also featured A.K. Gupta, Christian Parenti, Gilbert Achcar and Nir Rosen) that was held March 11th.
Anthony Arnove: The fundamental political reality is that the US occupation -- not al Qaeda, not Iran, not Syria -- is the reason for the insurgency in Iraq which is why no amount of 'surges' of additional troops, programs for police training, rhetoric about cutting off supply routes to Iran and Syria, or plans for victory is going to end the resistance to US occupation.Iraq today is an unqualified disaster even from the standpoint of the US ruling class. One can now regularly read on the pages of the Finanical Times and the Wall St. Journal establishment observers who proclaim Iraq the greatest foreign policy mistake in the history of the United States -- greater even than Vietnam.
[. . . ]
The Democrats came into a majority in the House, the Senate and the state governorships last Novemember as a result of a vote against the war in Iraq yet what have they done since taking office?
For all the laughable rhetoric about exporting democracy in Iraq and the Middle East -- which is the opposite of US intentions -- we now see again how little democracy we have at home as well. So far, the boldest measure the Democrats have been able to muster was to pass a non-binding House resolution criticizing the additional 21,500 troops Bush has sent to Iraq -- not the underlying occupation, not the military bases, not the economic occupation, not the presence of a 100,000 private mercenaries operating without any accountablility. The deaths, though, of Iraqis are binding. The deaths of US soldiers are binding. And let's remember that the Democrats, certainly the party's key leadership voted overwhelmingly to support Bush's invasion, that they have repeatedly voted to appropriate more funding for the occupation, and now many leading Democrats are pushing to add more than seventeen billion dollars to Bush's one hundred billion supplemental funding request for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Only now that the occupation is widely recognized as a complete disaster do you have Democrats voicing muted criticism of the war but much if it is utterly superficial.
[. . .]
There will be growing pressure on all of us as the 2008 presidentional election cycle continues to pick up to restrict the debate in this country to ever more narrow circles but we cannot afford to fall into that trap. If we become a lobbying wing of the Democratic Party we will become not more relevant as some insist but we will become irrelevant. The anti-war movement must maintain its independence and must continue to mobolize to fight for its own independent demands which I think first and foremost should be for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
Arnove is the author of, most recently, IRAQ: The Logic of Withdrawal. Last week on Law and Disorder (as Mike noted Friday) co-hosts Dalia Hashad and Michael Ratner discussed Brigadier General Douglas Lute who was the one who finally consented to be Bully Boy's war czar. Hashad noted that "czar" was a title the administration had moved away from and had settled on "war coordinator. Makes it sound like an after school job." Hashad also noted that Lute had told the Financial Times of London, some time ago, that he didn't support the concept of escalation. In August 2005, Peter Spiegel and Demetri Sevastopulo (Financial Times) reported that Lute felt the numbers of US troops on the ground in Iraq needed to be reduced for several reasons including, Lute speaking, "You have to undercut the perception of occupation in Iraq. It's very difficult to do that when you have 150,000-plus, largely western, foreign troops occupying the country." That was Lute in 2005, when US troops on the ground were far less than they are now and before he became the war czar or war coordinator.
Last week, Andishen Nouaree (Columbia's Free Times), observing that Laura Bush's laughable claim that no one suffers this illegal war more than the Bully Boy who started it, asked, "How much is the president suffering? Last week he quit his job. Not the whole job. He's still gonna give speeches, sign legislation, live in the White House, fly around on Air Force One and park his pickup truck in front of the 'Parking for Presidents Only' sign that Jenna bought him for the driveway in Crawford. Bush quit the 'lead the nation's war effort' part of his job. He announced . . . that he's handing that responbility over to U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute."
Finally, today on Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman spoke at length with Cindy Sheehan. From the end of the interview:
AMY GOODMAN: Cindy Sheehan, we have fifteen seconds. I have the sense, as you talk, that you're not actually leaving, even as a public face of the movement, but stepping back perhaps for a few months, a few weeks, to regroup. Is that accurate?
CINDY SHEEHAN: Well, what I like to think about is like, we're closing down the factory, we're going to retool, and we're going to open up, and it will be a new and improved version of it. But we are definitely going to come at it from a totally different direction.
And remember independent journalist John Pilger is on a speaking tour with his new book Freedom Next Time and his documentary Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror (which looks at DC, Afghanistan and Iraq). June 7th, he will discuss his book with Amy Goodman at The New School, Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12th Street, beginning at 7:00 pm (doors open at 6:15). Admission is $5 per person and students (with ID) can attend for free. Pilger will sign copies of his book afterwards and Amy Goodman will sign copies of her latest book (written with her brother David Goodman) Static. "For ticket information, contact (212) 229-5488 or boxoffice@newschool.edu. For media inquiries, contact (212) 209-5407 or ruth@nationbooks.org For more information, click here or e-mail pilgerny@gmail.com."
June 11th, Pilger will be in Los Angeles at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (244 S. San Pedro St.) and will discuss his book and show his documentary beginning at 7:00 pm (doors open at 6:00 pm). The price of admission to the even is five dollars. "Directions, maps, and parking info at: http://www.jaccc.org/directions.htm
Presented by The Center for Economic Research and Social Change, and The Nation Institute, with support from the Wallace Global Fund. For ticket information, call or visit the JACCC. Box office: 213-680-3700 (Box Office Hours: Monday - Saturday: Noon - 5 pm)For media inquiries, contact (212) 209-5407 or ruth@nationbooks.org For more information, email pilger.la@gmail.com."
June 13th finds him in San Francisco showing his film and discussing his book at Yerba Beuna Center for Arts (beginning at 7:00 pm, doors open at 6:00 pm) and the price of admission is $15 general and $5 for students. "Presented by The Center for Economic Research and Social Change, The Nation Institute, and KPFA, with support from the Wallace Global Fund. For ticket information, call 415-978-2787 or order online at http://www.ybca.org/. In person tickets at YBCA Box office located inside the Galleries and Forum Building, 701 Mission Street at Third. (Hours: Tue, Wed, Fri, Sat & Sun: noon - 5 pm; Thu: noon - 8 pm.) For media inquiries, contact (212) 209-5407 or ruth@nationbooks.org For more information, email pilgersf@gmail.com."
From San Francisco, he moves on to Chicago for the 2007 Socialism conference. At 11:30 am Saturday June 16th, he and Anthony Arnove will participate in a conversation, audience dialogue and book signing (Arnove is the author most recently of IRAQ: The Logic of Withdrawal) and that evening (still June 16th) at 7:30 Pilger will be at Chicago Crowne Plaza O'Hare (5440 North River Road, Rosemont, IL 60018) as part of a panel of international activists. To attend the conference, the fee is $85. For Saturday and Sunday only, the price is $70. To attend only one session, the cost is ten dollars. "Presented by The Center for Economic Research and Social Change, The Nation Institute, with support from the Wallace Global Fund. Co-sponsors: Obrera Socialista, Socialist Worker, International Socialist Review, and Haymarket Books. For ticket information, call 773-583-8665 or e-mail info@socialismconference.org For media inquiries, contact (212) 209-5407 or ruth@nationbooks.org. For more information, email info@socialismconference.org."
The Socialism 2007 conference will take place in Chicago from June 14-17. Along with Pilger and Arnove, others participating will include Dahr Jamail, Laura Flanders, Kelly Dougherty, Joshua Frank, Amy Goodman, Sharon Smith, Dave Zirin, Camilo Mejia, Jeremy Scahill, Jeffrey St. Clair and many others.
trish schuh
roger howard
aaron glantz
the common ills
mikey likes it
iraq
anthony arnove
law and disorderwbaidalia hashadmichael ratner
the new york timesdamien cave
camilo mejiamartin smithiraq veterans against the warjohn ward andersonthe washington postmcclatchy newspapers
amy goodmandemocracy now
cindy sheehan
This is Trish Schuh's "World Press Freedom in the Eyes & Ears of the Beholder:"
UNITED NATIONS- On the 14th Anniversary of World Press Freedom Day celebrated in May 3, UNESCO hosted an event for journalists called "Press Freedom, Safety of Journalists and Impunity." Under Article 1 of its Constitution, UNESCO is the only United Nations agency with a mandate to defend freedom of expression and press freedom.
United Nations Correspondent Association President Tuyet J. Nguyen spoke about the life-threatening danger faced by journalists covering such war zones as Rwanda and Iraq where the media is controlled by special interests or armed political parties.
Mr. Georges Malbrunot of France's neocon Le Figaro spoke of newsgathering under various "vicious surveillance" states- all Arab- and starting with Syria. In contrast, Malbrunot's embedding with American forces in Iraq was "not a bad solution", but opened embeddees to paranoid Arab charges of being "a spy...Its one of the major blames addressed to the foreign press today... Of course this blame is 99.9% wrong, but in the minds of these people who suffer from "conspiracy theory" this accusation is serious" and can cost a journalist his life. "There is alot of work to do to convince these groups that the journalist is not a spy." Malbrunot added that it is the work of Muslim Imams, scholars, leaders etc to persuade their Muslim flock of this fact... "Only then will the fate of the global war against terror be dramatically changed."
This writer asked the panel if journalists themselves could ever be partly responsible for such suspicions? Citing CNN's Anderson Cooper, who admitted spending his earlier summers working for the CIA: "Doesn't this kind of moonlighting put other journalists at risk?"
No response from the panel.
Representing half a million media professionals around the world on behalf of the International Federation of Journalists was Judith Matloff, a Professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and a member of the International News Safety Institute. Professor Matloff implored the international community to uphold UN Security Council Resolution 1738 which prohibits the killing and targeting of media, and protects free speech and freedom of the press globally.
In a followup conversation by telephone on May 25, I asked Prof Matloff for her opinion on how UNSCR 1738 applies to Lebanon's Al Manar TV and the LMG communications network- Lebanese media outlets bombed by Israel during the 2006 war, and officially censored as a "terrorist organization" by the US Congress.
Regarding this unprecedented, landmark free speech/censorship law, Ivy League academic Matloff said she was "unfamiliar with these situations" and refused to comment on Middle East issues. "I am an Africa specialist".
But wasn't free speech protected equally around the world under Res 1738? In the Middle East, as well as in Africa? Being a media expert, could she comment on what a law equating the media with "terrorism" could mean for freedom of the press? Concurrent with Bush's admitted deliberate bombing of Al Jazeera in Afghanistan and Iraq?
"I never heard of that," Matloff said.
With her credentials, shouldn't such Katrina-scale censorship have caught her eye?
Or perhaps she could assess how the mainstream media's advocacy of falsehoods promoted an illegal war in Iraq? "The New York Times has apologized," she said, referring to a full page 'mea culpa ad'. But isn't the NYT repeating the same misleading tactics to promote a next war in Iran?
With this and similar questions, Matloff responded like a true press "pro": avoiding ethical implications, defending her product- the status quo, and referring most answers to "other supervisors" or experts. Her refrain of "I don't know", "don't remember", "can't comment" captured the essence of a White House Press Briefing.
As a trainer of America's next generation of government "privatized propaganda contractors," (tomorrow's 'Mercenary Press') Matloff diverted the subject, passed the buck, and expertly earned her tenure...
On Press Freedom Day I spoke briefly to New York Times correspondent Warren Hoge about the media, Iraq and World Press Freedom Day.
Q: Its World Press Freedom Day and I just wanted to ask if you have any comments about The New York Times and their reporting in the runup to the Iraq War, and if you feel any kind of responsibility?
A: I can't talk about that- we've already said everything about that to be said in the paper, and I really don't want to add to it. I mean, The New York Times- more than most newspapers- has absolutely admitted what we thought was faulty and what was not. There's just nothing I can add to that at all. And I certainly don't want to talk about that on
Press Freedom Day when our thoughts are with Alan Johnston and other journalists that are being killed.
Q: Well my thoughts are also with the Iraqis. There are half a million dead- thanks in part to
your newspaper-
A: Oh come on.
Q: Your newspaper was one of the primary advocates for the war-
A: Oh come on, I can't talk to you-
Q: Your newspaper was primary- yes it was- Judith Miller got a security clearance from Donald Rumsfeld, sir-
A: The New York Times is not responsible for any dead Iraqis. I won't listen to that-
Q: None of the other American journalists but Judith Miller from your paper got a security
clearance from the US Defense Secretary himself. How is this different from working for the government?
A: You are are defiling Press Freedom Day- Shut up! This is about Press Freedom, this is not about defiling the Press. We've just come back from a demonstration for Alan Johnston for journalists being killed and that's what this day is about- Press Freedom.
Perhaps BBC World News Editor Jon Williams best summarized the outcome of shutting up the press: "We must not stand by and allow the intimidation of journalists- wherever it happens. If we do, we will pay a heavy price... There will be no eyes or ears telling us what's going on. We won't have the insight from those able to make sense of it."
But then, that may be just how the Powers That Be really want it.
(c) Trish Schuh
Uh-oh. Things may go bad for Our Modern Day Carrie Nations. Looks like more people are getting space to tell the truth. This is from Roger Howard's "Congo and Darfur: Where Anti-Arab Prejudice and Oil Make the Difference:"
In a remote corner of Africa, millions of civilians have been slaughtered in a conflict fueled by an almost genocidal ferocity that has no end in sight. Victims have been targeted because of their ethnicity and entire ethnic groups destroyed – but the outside world has turned its back, doing little to save people from the wrath of the various government and rebel militias.
You could be forgiven for thinking that this is a depiction of the Sudanese province of Darfur, racked by four years of bitter fighting. But it describes the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has received a fraction of the media attention devoted to Darfur.
The UN estimates that 3 million to 4 million Congolese have been killed, compared with the estimated 200,000 civilian deaths in Darfur. A peace deal agreed in December 2002 has never been adhered to, and atrocities have been particularly well documented in the province of Kivu – carried out by paramilitary organizations with strong governmental links. In the last month alone, thousands of civilians have been killed in heavy fighting between rebel and government forces vying for control of an area north of Goma, and the UN reckons that another 50,000 have been made refugees.
How curious, then, that so much more attention has been focused on Darfur than Congo. There are no pressure groups of any note that draw attention to the Congolese situation. In the media there is barely a word. The politicians are silent. Yet if ever there were a case for the outside world to intervene on humanitarian grounds alone – "liberal interventionism" – then surely this is it.
The key difference between the two situations lies in the racial and ethnic composition of the perceived victims and perpetrators. In Congo, black Africans are killing other black Africans in a way that is difficult for outsiders to identify with. The turmoil there can in that sense be regarded as a narrowly African affair. In Darfur the fighting is portrayed as a war between black Africans, rightly or wrongly regarded as the victims, and "Arabs," widely regarded as the perpetrators of the killings.
In practice these neat racial categories are highly indistinct, but it is through such a prism that the conflict is generally viewed. It is not hard to imagine why some in the west have found this perception so alluring, for there are numerous people who want to portray "the Arabs" in these terms. In the United States and elsewhere those who have spearheaded the case for foreign intervention in Darfur are largely the people who regard the Arabs as the root cause of the Israel-Palestine dispute.
[. . .]
Humanitarian concern among policymakers in Washington is ultimately self-interested. The United States is willing to impose new sanctions on the Sudan government if the latter refuses to accept a United Nations peacekeeping force, but it is no coincidence that Sudan, unlike Congo, has oil – lots of it – and strong links with China, a country the US regards as a strategic rival in the struggle for Africa's natural resources; only last week Amnesty International reported that Beijing has illicitly supplied Khartoum with large quantities of arms.
Sammy Powers, you big War Hawk, grab your axe! Better stop chopping before everyone catches on to what a LIAR you are and how hard you have worked to sell WAR. As an Irish-American, I'd also suggest that Samantha Powers not go home to Ireland. The Irish have enough problems without a professional shit-stirrer in their midst. And since "Powers" doesn't sound like any Catholic name I know, I'll guess that as a little War Hawk, she learned all about oppression by observing the colonizing and enslavement that was done to Irish Catholics. She's a colonoization queen and ready to spread empire whever she can. But she knows she needs to lie to people to do that. Maybe it's time we deported Sammy Powers? I'd really start a petition for that but I don't want Ireland to suffer. Of course, we could force her off on England -- that's where the invaders came from so they should take their little War Hawk back. But maybe even they don't want her. Grab the axe, Sammy Powers! Grab the axe! And don't waste my time getting one of your dumb ass groupies/zombies to e-mail me. Kiss my Irish-American-Catholic ass. That probably burns Sammy the most, that a Catholic's calling her out.
I plan to write about Law and Disorder tomorrow (I just got it in the mail today!) but C.I. does cover some of it in the snapshot. So here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Wednesday, May 30, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces 2 more deaths, Free Speech Radio News provides a first rate special, and more.
Steve Negus and Demetri Sevastopulo (Financial Times of London) report, "A series of fatalities announced on Tuesday in Iraq saw the US military's death toll rise to its highest monthly level in more than two years." Curiously (or maybe not so), the New York Times isn't interested. The story noting the 10 deaths (covered in yesterday's snapshot) isn't even worthy of a solo story. Instead it gets teamed up with the kidnapping of five people who chose to go to Iraq to make money. Five contractors (one prefers consultant) who are British and not even working for a British corporation so let's not pretend the "They wanted to serve their country!" crap is going to fly. Four were armed security guards. Currently the US army -- composed of service members who make peanuts unlike the high paid contractors -- are searching throughout Baghdad to save the five who came to Iraq hoping to line their pockets with some blood money. So it's all the more insulting that the New York Times thinks the 'perfect' thing to do is to pair the disappearance of 5 with the death of 10 who were ordered into Iraq and saw no chance of getting rich off the illegal war. After a 'shout out' paragraph two, Damien Cave forgets the US soldiers until paragraph nineteen. By contrast, the Washington Post front pages John Ward Anderson's report on how May is "the deadliest month for U.S. troops in 2 1/2 years".
Currently, the ICCC count for the total number of US service members killed in the illegal war is 3470 and the number killed in May (thus far) is 119. On Monday, Free Speech Radio News used their half-hour broadcast for a special Memorial Day look at the some of the costs of the war in US with reporter Aaron Glantz in the role of reporter and anchor. Glantz spoke with Muriel Dean whose husband was killed last Christmas. James E. Dean wasn't shot dead in Iraq, he was shot dead in Maryland. Having served 18 months in Afghanistan, suffering from PTSD and with an Iraq redployment coming up (January 14, 2007), James E. Dean went to his father's farm and holed up there, alone, with the possible intent to kill himself. Muriel Dean strongly believes that, at some point, her husband would have gotten tired, gone to sleep and, when he woke up, and left the farm. Instead, the police decided the thing to do in a situation where the farm was empty, where no neighbors were close by and where the only person James E. Dean could have hurt was himself, the thing to do was to use tear gas to force him out and then shoot him dead. The report from the review conducted by Maryland's State Attorney office deemed the police behavior "assualtive and militaristic."
Aaron Glantz: Pentagon doctors estimate that 12 percent of the 1.5 million veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Other studies put that number higher at closer to 30 percent. As the war drags on the military is increasingly sending soldiers back to Iraq for second and third tours even if they suffer from the same type of mental illness as Patrick Resta.
Glantz also spoke with Melissa and Patrick Resta who served in Al Anbar Province in Iraq and spoke of Iraqis approaching US service members with ill children but, Resta explains, that they were threatened with court-martial if they used medical supplies on anyone other than US service members. [This point is echoed in Camilo Mejia's Road from Ar Ramaid: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia.] When he returned from Iraq at the end of 2004, he was angry, unable to sleep, drinking, avoiding everyone. At Christmas, Melissa Resta asked her husband "if he wanted to split up and he told me he didn't care" which was her clue that there was something seriously wrong.
Patrick Resta has now been diagnosed with PTSD and is receiving treatment and attending college. He states: "I'm definitely not the person I was before. I was always laid back, you know relaxed, always cracking jokes and now I'm anxious and tense and have bouts of anger, have some pretty severe insomnia, have some bad nightmares and I think it's pretty standard for the men and women that have been over there. All of the people that I've talked to, it's pretty much the same -- the same set of symptons and the same problems."
Melissa Resta: There are so many of these things that I never would have thought would be a problem and now I have to think them through. The grocery store's too crowded. We also live in a city with a very high Muslim population and there are a lot of women in traditional Muslim dress and sometimes I notice that that can be unsettling for him to see that just because I think it brings back these feelings. I mean there are a lot of things that you have to take into consideration and at 27 it's not really where I had pictured myself.
Glantz also interviewed Kristy Kruger whose brother, Eric Kruger, was killed in Baghdad by a roadside bomb November 2, 2006. [Kristy Kruger, a singer-songwriter, often performs concerts to benefit her brother's four children. Donations can be sent to: The Memorial Fund for Children of LTC Eric Kruger, 6460 Crystal Mountain Rd., Colorado Springs, CO 80923.]
And Glantz interviewed doctors who treat PTSD including Dr. Col. Vito Imbascini who was stationed in Germany for four months last year where he treated US service members wounded in the war and discussed how body armor meant service members who might have lost a limb in Vietnam and suffered wounds to their chest and abdmonen that led to their deaths are now likely to survive "but be severely disabled for life" allowing "an extremely high number of wounded American soldiers are coming home with their arms or legs amputated" and, during his four months in Germany, he "amputated the genitals of one or two men every day."
Again, that is the Memorial Day special of Free Speech Radio News. Today the Daily Mail reported on Martin Packer, a British soldier who had self-checked out, and killed himself (Monday) in front of Joanne Hepple (his girlfriend) and her two songs as a result of being "tormented by what he had witnessed in" Iraq. War resisters Darrell Anderson and Joshua Key are among those who have disclosed their own PTSD. From Key's book, The Deserter's Tale (pp. 209-210):
A Canadian psychiatrist told me that you never truly emerge from post-traumatic stress disorder, that you simply learn to live with it.
There are certain things that I avoid these days, such as alcohol and crowds, because I fear they will trigger more of my own blackouts. I know that thousands of American soldiers have abused drugs or committed suicide after returning home from war. It would be easy to follow in the steps of many in my own family and drown my shame and my sorrows in alcohol. Alcohol, however, could lead to the very problem of suicidal depression that have plagued vets for generations.
Joshua Key is part of a growing movement of war resistance within the US military that includes Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Augstin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.
Today, in Iraq, the violence continues as does the breeding of hostilities. Alexandra Zavis (Los Angeles Times) reports that the raids to find the 5 British contractors is even more violent than the search to find the 3 missing US soldiers (and remember, only the corpse of one of the 3 US soldiers is confirmed found) by crashing into one Iraqi police officer's "home about 2 a.m. using an armored vehicle, cuffed and blindfolded those inside, and pointed lasers at their chests. 'They were hitting us, asking, "Where are the kidnapped British?" said the man who asked that his name not be published for fear of retribution by Western forces. 'I told them that we are five brothers in the police force. How could we do that? They said OK, then tell us where are they?" Also today, the US military has confirmed what CNN reported yesterday -- remember the days when reporting was reporting and official government statements were official government states? Rest easy outlets, you can now report what CNN did yesterday: A US helicopter was shot down Monday in Iraq (which led to the death of 2 US soldiers and 6 died while attempting to rush to the scene of the crash). Repeating, the US military has confirmed what CNN reported. Read AP here and wonder why news outlets not only wouldn't report the helicopter was shot down but they also wouldn't even report it by couching it with "CNN is reporting that . . ." In other air news, Turkey, which shares a border with Iraq, has issued a request. Turkish Daily News reports the government of Turkey "formally asked the United States not to repeat any airspace violation, following an incident last week where two US F-16 fighters infringed the Turkish air corridor." And that comes as tensions continue to mount between Turkey and the Kurdish northern Iraq. CBS and AP report, "Turkey has sent large contigents of soldiers, tanks and armored personnel carriers to reinforce its border with Iraq amid a heated debate over whether to stage a cross-border offensive to hit Kurdish rebel bases. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday urged the United States and Iraq to destroy bases of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, in northern Iraq as the Turkish military depoloyed more tanks and soldiers on the border."
Bombings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a parked car Baghdad bombing that claimed 1 life (5 wounded), 2 Baghdad mortar attacks that killed 1 person and left 6 wounded, a Baghdad bombing that killed an Iraqi soldier and three police officers were wounded from a bombing near the Basheer village. Reuters reports a Mhmudiya mortar attack that killed 3 people and left 21 wounded and a Falluja mortar attack that left 5 dead (15 wounded).
Shootings?
Alexandra Zavis (Los Angeles Times) notes the Amarah shooting death of "a journalist working with the Aswat Al-Iraq news agency". AFP notes that "three journalists had been killed in the previous three days." Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports Ala'a Abdul Razzaq Qasim (interior ministry intelligence) was shot dead in Baghdad along with two of his bodyguards, Mohammed Shakir (ministry of interior affairs) was shot dead in Baghdad, a bodyguard was shot dead in Hawija in an attack on "the head of the judicial committee of Hawija," and 3 police officers wer shot dead in Diyala province. Reuters notes a woman killed in an Mosul attack.
Corpses?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 23 corpses discovered in Baghdad.
Today the US military announced: "Two Multi-National Division-Center Soldiers were killed while on dismounted patrol when a roadside bomb exploded today."
On this week's Law and Disorder (WBAI on Monday and others throughout the ) featured Anthony Arnove's remarks from the Left Forum panel Iraq: What's At Stake (which also featured A.K. Gupta, Christian Parenti, Gilbert Achcar and Nir Rosen) that was held March 11th.
Anthony Arnove: The fundamental political reality is that the US occupation -- not al Qaeda, not Iran, not Syria -- is the reason for the insurgency in Iraq which is why no amount of 'surges' of additional troops, programs for police training, rhetoric about cutting off supply routes to Iran and Syria, or plans for victory is going to end the resistance to US occupation.Iraq today is an unqualified disaster even from the standpoint of the US ruling class. One can now regularly read on the pages of the Finanical Times and the Wall St. Journal establishment observers who proclaim Iraq the greatest foreign policy mistake in the history of the United States -- greater even than Vietnam.
[. . . ]
The Democrats came into a majority in the House, the Senate and the state governorships last Novemember as a result of a vote against the war in Iraq yet what have they done since taking office?
For all the laughable rhetoric about exporting democracy in Iraq and the Middle East -- which is the opposite of US intentions -- we now see again how little democracy we have at home as well. So far, the boldest measure the Democrats have been able to muster was to pass a non-binding House resolution criticizing the additional 21,500 troops Bush has sent to Iraq -- not the underlying occupation, not the military bases, not the economic occupation, not the presence of a 100,000 private mercenaries operating without any accountablility. The deaths, though, of Iraqis are binding. The deaths of US soldiers are binding. And let's remember that the Democrats, certainly the party's key leadership voted overwhelmingly to support Bush's invasion, that they have repeatedly voted to appropriate more funding for the occupation, and now many leading Democrats are pushing to add more than seventeen billion dollars to Bush's one hundred billion supplemental funding request for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Only now that the occupation is widely recognized as a complete disaster do you have Democrats voicing muted criticism of the war but much if it is utterly superficial.
[. . .]
There will be growing pressure on all of us as the 2008 presidentional election cycle continues to pick up to restrict the debate in this country to ever more narrow circles but we cannot afford to fall into that trap. If we become a lobbying wing of the Democratic Party we will become not more relevant as some insist but we will become irrelevant. The anti-war movement must maintain its independence and must continue to mobolize to fight for its own independent demands which I think first and foremost should be for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
Arnove is the author of, most recently, IRAQ: The Logic of Withdrawal. Last week on Law and Disorder (as Mike noted Friday) co-hosts Dalia Hashad and Michael Ratner discussed Brigadier General Douglas Lute who was the one who finally consented to be Bully Boy's war czar. Hashad noted that "czar" was a title the administration had moved away from and had settled on "war coordinator. Makes it sound like an after school job." Hashad also noted that Lute had told the Financial Times of London, some time ago, that he didn't support the concept of escalation. In August 2005, Peter Spiegel and Demetri Sevastopulo (Financial Times) reported that Lute felt the numbers of US troops on the ground in Iraq needed to be reduced for several reasons including, Lute speaking, "You have to undercut the perception of occupation in Iraq. It's very difficult to do that when you have 150,000-plus, largely western, foreign troops occupying the country." That was Lute in 2005, when US troops on the ground were far less than they are now and before he became the war czar or war coordinator.
Last week, Andishen Nouaree (Columbia's Free Times), observing that Laura Bush's laughable claim that no one suffers this illegal war more than the Bully Boy who started it, asked, "How much is the president suffering? Last week he quit his job. Not the whole job. He's still gonna give speeches, sign legislation, live in the White House, fly around on Air Force One and park his pickup truck in front of the 'Parking for Presidents Only' sign that Jenna bought him for the driveway in Crawford. Bush quit the 'lead the nation's war effort' part of his job. He announced . . . that he's handing that responbility over to U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute."
Finally, today on Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman spoke at length with Cindy Sheehan. From the end of the interview:
AMY GOODMAN: Cindy Sheehan, we have fifteen seconds. I have the sense, as you talk, that you're not actually leaving, even as a public face of the movement, but stepping back perhaps for a few months, a few weeks, to regroup. Is that accurate?
CINDY SHEEHAN: Well, what I like to think about is like, we're closing down the factory, we're going to retool, and we're going to open up, and it will be a new and improved version of it. But we are definitely going to come at it from a totally different direction.
And remember independent journalist John Pilger is on a speaking tour with his new book Freedom Next Time and his documentary Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror (which looks at DC, Afghanistan and Iraq). June 7th, he will discuss his book with Amy Goodman at The New School, Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12th Street, beginning at 7:00 pm (doors open at 6:15). Admission is $5 per person and students (with ID) can attend for free. Pilger will sign copies of his book afterwards and Amy Goodman will sign copies of her latest book (written with her brother David Goodman) Static. "For ticket information, contact (212) 229-5488 or boxoffice@newschool.edu. For media inquiries, contact (212) 209-5407 or ruth@nationbooks.org For more information, click here or e-mail pilgerny@gmail.com."
June 11th, Pilger will be in Los Angeles at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (244 S. San Pedro St.) and will discuss his book and show his documentary beginning at 7:00 pm (doors open at 6:00 pm). The price of admission to the even is five dollars. "Directions, maps, and parking info at: http://www.jaccc.org/directions.htm
Presented by The Center for Economic Research and Social Change, and The Nation Institute, with support from the Wallace Global Fund. For ticket information, call or visit the JACCC. Box office: 213-680-3700 (Box Office Hours: Monday - Saturday: Noon - 5 pm)For media inquiries, contact (212) 209-5407 or ruth@nationbooks.org For more information, email pilger.la@gmail.com."
June 13th finds him in San Francisco showing his film and discussing his book at Yerba Beuna Center for Arts (beginning at 7:00 pm, doors open at 6:00 pm) and the price of admission is $15 general and $5 for students. "Presented by The Center for Economic Research and Social Change, The Nation Institute, and KPFA, with support from the Wallace Global Fund. For ticket information, call 415-978-2787 or order online at http://www.ybca.org/. In person tickets at YBCA Box office located inside the Galleries and Forum Building, 701 Mission Street at Third. (Hours: Tue, Wed, Fri, Sat & Sun: noon - 5 pm; Thu: noon - 8 pm.) For media inquiries, contact (212) 209-5407 or ruth@nationbooks.org For more information, email pilgersf@gmail.com."
From San Francisco, he moves on to Chicago for the 2007 Socialism conference. At 11:30 am Saturday June 16th, he and Anthony Arnove will participate in a conversation, audience dialogue and book signing (Arnove is the author most recently of IRAQ: The Logic of Withdrawal) and that evening (still June 16th) at 7:30 Pilger will be at Chicago Crowne Plaza O'Hare (5440 North River Road, Rosemont, IL 60018) as part of a panel of international activists. To attend the conference, the fee is $85. For Saturday and Sunday only, the price is $70. To attend only one session, the cost is ten dollars. "Presented by The Center for Economic Research and Social Change, The Nation Institute, with support from the Wallace Global Fund. Co-sponsors: Obrera Socialista, Socialist Worker, International Socialist Review, and Haymarket Books. For ticket information, call 773-583-8665 or e-mail info@socialismconference.org For media inquiries, contact (212) 209-5407 or ruth@nationbooks.org. For more information, email info@socialismconference.org."
The Socialism 2007 conference will take place in Chicago from June 14-17. Along with Pilger and Arnove, others participating will include Dahr Jamail, Laura Flanders, Kelly Dougherty, Joshua Frank, Amy Goodman, Sharon Smith, Dave Zirin, Camilo Mejia, Jeremy Scahill, Jeffrey St. Clair and many others.
trish schuhroger howardaaron glantzthe common ills
mikey likes it
iraq
anthony arnove
law and disorderwbaidalia hashadmichael ratner
the new york timesdamien cave
camilo mejiamartin smithiraq veterans against the warjohn ward andersonthe washington postmcclatchy newspapers
amy goodmandemocracy now
cindy sheehan
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